Kairosclerosis
by ArchValkyrie
Summary: Happiness. It only lasts if you don't see it - like the one man that's stuck in the back of a photo; ever present but not really there until you begin to pick. Picking at it and trying to make sense of it with numbers and words and logic will only make it evanescent - thinking it all away. Sherlock can never stop thinking. Drabble. Slash if you see it that way.


**[ KAIROSCLEROSIS ]**

_n_. the moment you realize that you're currently happy—consciously trying to savor the feeling—which prompts your intellect to identify it, pick it apart and put it in context, where it will slowly dissolve until it's little more than an aftertaste.

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Sherlock was mutely aware he was happy; happier than he'd been in a while - a very, very long while in fact. With John snoring away softly, dozing on the couch no less with that god-forsaken laptop still cradled in his arms as his blog web-page blinked out of life as the laptop screeched for it's charger and then abruptly going off with a dull buzz. John would not be amused but Sherlock most definitely was, as he applied another nicotine patch to his arm absent-mindedly as his super-sociopath brain began to do it again - That thing.

It'd always been been easy to able to pick apart cheap, plastic politeness and smiles which didn't quite reach people's eyes but he was skilled, if not worryingly so, at picking these things apart. Sherlock Holmes was dissecting his emotions. He felt something in him writhe in agitation - he was happy and he was going to savour it. He tried absolutely everything, dialling up to five nicotine patches in a desperate plea to cling onto the contentment that he knew would not last him long.

He consciously shut himself off from the world - he wanted this to last, even for a short while as he tried to dig up things that made him, The Great Sherlock Holmes, happy.

He inhaled deeply and pressed his palms together, for once not clammy from thought of exhaustion but fairly normal and dry as he rubbed them together in an attempt to delve deeper into his head.

Things that made him happy? Cases.

He filed through his mental archive, the glorious and the degraded flashing through his mind, mere after-images of a great moment once-had and lacking in their taste of triumph and not a single memory could do more than make him clench his jaw. The faux escapade at Baskerville had left him with a sour taste in his mouth - something horrible and seething, like maggots crawling from underneath his skin until he felt like scratching it red raw and unleashing the foul beasts that felt like they were constricting his chest. Nothing had really hurt Sherlock there, his pride had maybe taken a good slap in the face when he realised it was not in fact the sugar but seeing John look so hurt over it made his stomach positively twang in pain.

The strange Doctor had an odd effect on Sherlock - he was none of the plastic smiling nonsense but every action he took was sincere, had a purpose behind it, creating it's own grace in some oddly beautiful way. The polar opposite of Sherlock Holmes, who was purposeful but not graceful. More rough around the edges and seeing Justice as open to interpretation.

The good doctor was nothing but a man though, another angel and Sherlock was not one of them - the pure and untainted was too far out of reach for him.

He flexed his fingers, for some reason an uneasiness bubbling in the pit of his stomach, coiling and snaking around his entire being and something was definitely amiss here.

John Watson was a positively normal man and from his face alone he'd be mistaken for one of the other, countless, dull faces roaming the pavements of Her Majesty's streets with hoods of all sorts or maybe a brief-case to tag along as their limited little minds focused on working a low-pay job full of yet more dreariness and dread all for their salaries to be taxed beyond what was humanely right.

But normally, he wouldn't care - let them die says he, another case to amuse himself with. Another self-absorbed sob-story.

But John Watson was none of that, none of it.

So why did he, Sherlock Almighty Holmes CARE?

And then it snapped in his head, like a catapult being set off, a domino starting off a chain reaction.

John Watson made Sherlock Holmes content.

He picked at it, every crack and flaw - John was only here for the flat, right? Only there because his military wage wouldn't cover his own place, only there to blog and bask in the fame, surely?

No.

John Watson was not like that. He was here because he liked Sherlock Holmes, genuinely, not even for the money or the house or the fame - but because of him. God forbid.

Sherlock was not used to being wanted let alone appreciated and admired.

The dozing man stirred in his sleep, the action not going unnoticed by the mastermind in his current state of possible mental turmoil.

He swallowed deeply, his Adam's apple bobbing as he exhaled and open his eyes once more.

John Watson made Sherlock Holmes content. Happy, even. He sat up, posture arrow=straight and stared at John for a while, seeing the little bits of dust in the sunlight, dancing and fluttering to the floor. That very fact was highly unsettling in his massive expanse of a brain and he wondered how the limited things that flooded the streets below could cope.

The fact threw him off as something akin to boredom filled his head - not the true, sheer boredom that plagued him everyday but the one that he knew wasn't real, the distraction to get his mind off of the alarming fact.

Time for another case.

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**First time writing for these two, I apologise for any OOC and reviews are lovely. Constructive Criticism is welcomed. Definition taken from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows which I hope to write more from.**

**- Valkyrie**


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